F.1 Weight Submission
39 As to the Weight Submission, it is useful to deal with the submission in two parts. First, whether the Advice misled the Attorney-General. The Department is said to have "showed its preference for extradition" by downplaying powerful reasons for recommending against extradition, and by giving too much weight to the wish of the United Kingdom that Mr Alexander be prosecuted. Mr Smith submitted that the medical reports make plain that Mr Alexander suffers from very serious health issues, and that the doctors' prediction was that sending him overseas would likely reduce his life expectancy significantly, and aggravate various illnesses. It was said that there is no analysis in the Advice which considers in any depth the very real threat to Mr Alexander's life that is posed by the prospect of extradition.
40 Leaving aside the legal problem that the thrust of the argument amounted to a merits attack, the further difficulty is that the Submission included all relevant submissions and medical reports, and the Advice explicitly considered those representations made on Mr Alexander's behalf, including both the risk of significant deterioration of Mr Alexander's health, and Mr Alexander's capacity to defend himself.
41 When it came to analysing the material and putting forward a recommendation to the Attorney-General, the Department embarked upon a process whereby it afforded different weight to different factors as it saw fit. The analysis was transparent, and put in such a way that the Attorney-General was able to review the material and the recommendation himself, and make an informed decision. The process of reasoning in the Submission cannot now be attributed to the Attorney-General and the varying weight given by the Department to various factors cannot found any inference as to the weight that the Attorney-General himself attached to the issues canvassed.
42 The second point to make regarding this submission, is that although the submission was not explicitly expressed as being one of unreasonableness, given the necessity for Mr Alexander to demonstrate jurisdictional error if he is to be successful, I indicated to the parties during the course of the hearing, that I would take this as being a submission that the decision was legally unreasonable or irrational.
43 Legal unreasonableness has been described in a variety of ways. Recently, Griffiths J (with whom Gleeson J agreed) provided a comprehensive summary of the current state of the law in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Haq [2019] FCAFC 7 at [31]-[38]. Having regard to the role of a court when conducting judicial review, in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li [2013] HCA 18; (2013) 249 CLR 332, Gageler J explained that a review of the reasonableness of a decision made by another repository of power "is concerned mostly with the existence of justification, transparency and intelligibility within the decision-making process" but also with "whether the decision falls within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and law": at 375 [105]. Further, in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZVFW [2018] HCA 30; (2018) 357 ALR 408, Nettle and Gordon JJ expanded upon this statement, noting at 428 [83] that:
… grievous error may result if a court on review had to identify a particular error to found its conclusion of unreasonableness. If the court approached the assessment in this way, at least one important part of the lens for assessing legal unreasonableness would be removed: namely, error identified by observing that the result is so unreasonable that it could not have been reached if proper reasoning had been applied in the exercise of the statutory power in the particular circumstances.
44 It is this last-mentioned part of the lens with which we are concerned in this case.
45 In CVO17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] FCA 1612 at [42]-[44], I recently had cause to consider the application of legal unreasonableness in circumstances where no reasons had been given:
As was observed in Li at 367 [76] the judicial freedom for an appellate court to draw inferences as to the unreasonableness of a decision is limited. To this end, the High Court noted that:
Even where some reasons have been provided, as is the case here, it may nevertheless not be possible for a court to comprehend how the decision was arrived at. Unreasonableness is a conclusion which may be applied to a decision which lacks an evident and intelligible justification.
In circumstances such as the present, where no reasons have been provided for the exercise of a discretion, "all a supervising court can do is focus on the outcome of the exercise of power in the factual context presented, and assess, for itself, its justification or intelligibility": Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Singh [2014] FCAFC 1; (2014) 231 FCR 437 at 446 [45]. This assessment must be made bearing in mind that it is for the repository of the power, and not for the Court, to exercise the power in such a way as the repository of power thinks fit, subject to the requirement that it be done according to law: at 446 [45]; see also Avon Downs Proprietary Limited v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1949) 78 CLR 353 at 359-360.
Ultimately, I must therefore focus upon the outcome of the exercise of power in the factual context presented, being the adjectival outcome, that the appellant was questioned in the absence of Mr Hudson, and assess the intelligibility of that outcome in the factual context I have described above.
46 The consideration of whether a decision is unreasonable must begin then, with an examination of the scope, purpose and object of the legislative scheme. Here, the general discretion according to which the decision was made is one which is particularly broad. In Rivera v Minister for Justice and Customs [2007] FCAFC 123; (2007) 160 FCR 115, Emmett J (with whom Conti J agreed) described the general discretion in s 22(3)(f) in the following terms (at 119 [14]):
Finally, under s 22(3)(f), the Minister must consider that the person should be surrendered in relation to the offence. Thus, the Minister has a general discretion whether to surrender an eligible person or not. The discretion is unfettered and the Minister may, in the exercise of the discretion, take into account any matters, or no matters, provided that the discretion is exercised in good faith and consistently with the objects, scope and purpose of the Act.
47 In exercising this discretion, the Attorney-General was not bound to take any particular matter into account. The fact that a particular matter is the subject of a submission or representation does not mean that the decision-maker is bound to consider it: Snedden at 108-109 [151] (Middleton and Wigney JJ).
48 A further element of the unreasonableness analysis is worth repeating: it is a fact-dependant inquiry, and requires careful examination of the particular evidence in each case. And in this case, given that there was no obligation to provide reasons, there is no confined point of focus for that analysis other than the decision itself. Doing the best I can, and focussing upon the outcome of the exercise of power, I must assess the intelligibility of that outcome. Bearing in mind the breadth of the power and legislative landscape, it does not seem to me that it could be said that the decision to extradite Mr Alexander was one which lacks any intelligible justification. To adapt the words of Allsop CJ in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Stretton [2016] FCAFC 11; (2016) 237 FCR 1 at [21], this was a decision that a decision-maker could reasonably come to and because it was a conclusion upon which reasonable minds could differ (looking at it favourably from the perspective of Mr Alexander), it cannot be legally illogical, irrational or unreasonable. Evidence as to his medical condition was before the Attorney-General, as was a submission identifying the seriousness of the alleged offences. In short, the decision reached by the Attorney-General is one which in all the circumstances, a decision-maker could reasonably make.